Study Projects ObamaCare Will Increase Deficit as Much as $530B

A new study out this morning finds that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is expected to add as much as $530 billion (and at least $340 billion) to federal deficits while increasing spending by more than $1.15 trillion.

The study by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University said that to ensure Obamacare "does not worsen the federal fiscal outlook, fully two-thirds of the ACA’s new health-exchange subsidies must be repealed, or financing offsets must be found before 2014."

"The ACA’s fiscal effects are often misunderstood because government scorekeeping conventions contrast with enacted law," senior research fellow Charles Blahous found. He is a public trustee for Medicare and Social Security.

"To ensure the ACA does not further increase federal health care financing commitments, the entirety of its new health exchange subsidies and most of its Medicaid/CHIP expansion must be eliminated, unless corrections reduce other spending by an equal amount."

In a statement posted on the White House blog, an assistant dismissed the new study as "new math (that) fits the old pattern of mischaracterizations."